Career Management and Development for Research Faculty Good Practice Guidelines for Research Faculty As well as the support you should receive from your principal investigator and the University to help you with your career development, you have an integral role in managing your own career. There are many ways you can develop and effectively manage your career while working at the University. What You Should Do To Manage and Develop Your Career: [ ] Think ahead ! You need to start thinking about the next step in your career as soon as possible and at least six months before the end of your contract. You also need to think about how your next step fits in to your overall career plan Decide if you want your next career step to be academia or elsewhere To help you do this: - talk to your supervisor about ways of continuing working in the School/Unit, if that's what you want to do e.g. who the relevant funding bodies are etc. look at the internet sites of funding councils for possible sources of funding - ask your supervisor, your peers or the careers service to help you identify the skills that you are developing as a researcher. Once you know what you can offer you are in a better position to start identifying possible employers - talk to your supervisor about your goals. Involve him / her in helping you to achieve them wherever possible - find out if there is a School/Unit research faculty contact, or another member of staff you can talk to, if you are unhappy about talking to your supervisor about these issues - identify people you can talk to about your career plans, such as your supervisor, other members of academic staff in your School/Unit, former research faculty; ask your supervisor to suggest contacts in industry you can talk to about your career plans; ask your supervisor which types of employment previous research faculty have gone on to; ask if you could